Sunday, November 23, 2014

Is God Really Simple?


Theists like to make a big deal over Richard Dawkins' objection in The God Delusion that to posit a god as the creator of a complex universe, one has to posit an even more complex god. Theists typically react to this objection by saying that god is simple, and point to god's non-physical nature as having no moving parts. I get that a non-physical being is physically simple, but this common theistic reply assumes that the only kind of complexity is physical complexity. It totally ignores conceptual complexity. Thus, I'm arguing that god is conceptually more complex than the universe is physically complex. This is supported by the ability for us to understand the universe in terms of laws of physics and every theist admitting that a true understanding of god is fully beyond human comprehension. If our universe is comprehensible and god is not, then the universe is more simple than god. The fact that the laws of physics are currently incomplete says nothing about the universe's intelligibility. If fact, the universe's intelligibility is used as an argument for god's existence!

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